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a few months ago James was at a
conference in Poland and a group of
designers came up to him and asked him
why he'd never done a show on hidden
object games at first James thought they
were joking because you know hidden
object games but then after a moment
James realized they were absolutely
right why hadn't we done a show on
hidden object games the answer was
simple they were one of the few types of
games that James knew almost nothing
about
he had never worked on a hidden object
game worse still he'd only played a few
and that was a few years ago when the
industry as a whole was just becoming
enamored with the wonders of the casual
market like most core players James had
simply sort of forgotten about the genre
but being asked about them made him
think after all he buys the latest
Madden game every year as a designer
just to see what they've changed so why
hasn't he kept up on this genre
I mean hidden object games sell more
than Madden and they certainly reach a
larger audience they had simply fallen
off his radar for some reason this
entire genre existed outside all the
gaming and industry media he'd read so
as a designer burning with curiosity to
understand why he dove into it the folks
who initially kicked this all off by
asking about the topic wherefrom
artifacts Monday one of the top studios
in the hidden objects onra and they were
kind enough to point James to a number
of examples he should check out and
after diving through these games
James realized exactly why this large
section of the industry almost never
surfaced in all the games media he'd
read hidden object games are designed
for an entirely different audience it
was actually kind of amazing all this
time we in the mainstream game industry
have been arguing about how to write
female characters how to design female
characters and here's a portion of the
industry that's been quietly doing it
for years
that's right almost a hundred percent of
the protagonists and hidden object games
are female and a large number of the
games James played were mother/daughter
stories or played on maternal themes but
that's kind of mind-blowing it
recontextualizes the discussion we've
been having about female characters and
games for years all this time the real
question we in the mainstream gaming
world have been fighting over was not
how do we create quality female
characters but rather how do we create
reasonable female characters that still
appeal to our largely male audience
because here are people who've been
writing totally acceptable female
characters for years and no one thought
about it twice because they were made
for a largely female audience and an
audience with an average age over 20
this left James with a lot to think
about and will probably do an episode on
how those are fundamentally different
questions once James has gotten a little
more time to reflect but it was just
fascinating to him to see
so many female characters in video games
without once having a thought more
negative or critical than this one's a
little too Nancy Drew or this one is
very Miss Marple that's not to say that
all of them were well-written that
there's as much bad writing and hidden
object games as there is in games in
general but other than some wafer thin
characters and the occasional poor
translation it was just fascinating to
see games that didn't even seem to take
notice of the fact that they were
writing characters with no y chromosome
but maybe we're getting ahead of
ourselves this may all be sounding a bit
strange to some of you I mean you might
be thinking what so let's talk about
characters aren't hidden object games
just about searching for images and a
larger picture and you know what James
was right there with you when he was
first approached about it but over the
last few years the evolution of hidden
object games has been astounding they
basically took over where the old
point-and-click adventure games left off
essentially imagine Monkey Island except
some of the puzzles are find all the
hidden objects in this room instead of
figure out what doodad goes where to
make some ridiculous thing happen that's
basically the state of modern hidden
object games now they often have a lot
of the same problems that old point and
click games had they require a little
too much guesswork and a lot too much
reach reversal but if you miss those old
point-and-click days and haven't looked
in any of these games it might be worth
your time to do so who knows maybe we'll
even do a games you might not have tried
on hidden object games sometime we
wouldn't even have to dig that deep I
can probably just list the ten best
examples on the market and they don't
qualify often these games are easier and
much more intuitive than the old
LucasArts fair but they reach into just
about everything to honor there is James
even found a Lovecraft themed at the
Mountains of Madness hidden-object game
and surprisingly he said it wasn't the
worst Lovecraft game he'd ever played by
the way please don't get him started on
a rant about the misuse of Lovecraft and
games will be stuck on it for a month
just about the only thing James couldn't
find represented outside of the modern
military genre was the cyberpunk genre
side note if you want some thoughts on
how to make a cyberpunk hidden-object
game James says to get in touch so
overall we'd like to thank the folks at
artifacts Monday again for revealing to
us a John R which we had simply turned a
blind eye to it may not be our favorite
genre the play may not be what we want
to do all the time but we learned a
great deal by exploring it and seeing an
entire branch of the games industry
which exists in its own ecosystem
quietly isolated from the roar of
mainstream games was a fascinating
experiment it made us fundamentally
rethink how we're looking at the
question of female characters and games
and gave us some extraordinary insights
into just what problem it is we're
trying
tackle see you next week
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